Pinecest One-Shots!
by ConiferousSiblings
Summary: A selection of Pinecest one-shots, largely featuring older (highschool/college) aged Pines Twins being all lovey dovey. The stories are mostly unrelated, though there are similar threads running through a few of them. Mostly clean and cute, but one is pretty smutty - hope you all enjoy! UPDATE - Chapters 7 & 8 had formatted weirdly when I pasted them over, but I corrected it!
1. Chapter 1

_The Most Dangerous Game_

Dipper felt the sweat bead on his forehead… the situation was looking grim. He was cornered on all sides by the enemy and his every potential move was a minefield of humiliation. He had to trust himself entirely to fate now, no amount of planning would save him… and he'd never had the best luck in the family. Was there any way out of this?

"Dip are you gonna roll those dice sometime this year?" Mabel asked sweetly, giving him a wide and only slightly malicious smile.

"Just… just give me a second here." Dipper said, waving his hand at her irritably.

_The yellows are a nightmare, but I'd have to roll really low to hit those… and its mostly clear on that side except for the Boardwalk and Park Place… and no one __**ever**__ lands on those. Okay, maybe this isn't actually as bad as it looks._

"Is a second what they call an hour on your alien planet?" Mabel teased.

Dipper puffed out a long breath and shook his head once.

"Alright, get ready Mabel - I'm bringing the pain!" he said confidently as he tossed the dice with a flick of the wrist, sending them clattering loudly across the game board and echoing loudly in the dusty walls of the Mystery Shack attic.

The plastic cubes rolled and spun to a halt in the center of the board showing double sixes. Dipper glanced down at the board and counted the spaces silently before he turned back up to see Mabel's expectant grin. He gulped once and then moved the little metal hat over to Boardwalk.

"Well well well Sir Dippingsauce, it looks like _someone_ has decided to live it up this weekend at the fabulous Hotel Mabel. And how will sir be paying for his room?" she asked, kicking her feet playfully as she cradled her face in her hands.

"Would you take a cap?" he asked hopefully.

"For Boardwalk? Pardon my french bro, but heck no - we're talking pants territory here." Mabel said, holding out her hand expectantly and cocking her fingers twice at him in a 'gimme' gesture.

Dipper groaned and rolled his eyes.

"How do the rules to strip-monopoly even work anyway? You change them every time I land on one of your spaces." Dipper complained.

"Hey, I didn't hear you whining about it when I kept landing on that little shantytown you have on Baltic avenue - you seemed pretty happy with the game then. So are you gonna pay up or just be a giant baby." Mabel said.

Dipper sighed and unbuckled his jeans and tossed them into the pile of his clothes that had accumulated on Mabel's side of the board, leaving him in just his blue cap and a pair of boxer shorts.

"I would never have agreed to this game if I knew that you had been wearing 5 shirts under your sweater." he grumbled.


	2. Chapter 2

_Chemistry_

"Do you have to wear that hat _all_ the time?" Rachel asked, the sharp tone of her voice making the question sound like an accusation.

"What's wrong with my hat?" Dipper asked mildly, but with a slight hint of nervousness.

"You wear it every single day – don't you at least have a different hat to wear?" she asked.

"It's my lucky hat… anyway I think it makes me look distinctive." Dipper said defensively.

"It makes you look like a fucking cartoon character, wearing the same thing every day." Rachel sniffed, her voice heavy with condescension.

Dipper's brows furrowed into a scowl and he looked like he was going to snap back at her, but he stopped short. He sighed and slipped the faded blue cap off his head, tossing it onto the couch just out of her reach.

"Better?" he asks, his voice strained but friendly.

"It's a good start," she replied with a too-bright smile, reaching her well-manicured hand out to ruffle his hair.

_He's not a dog, _Mabel thought grouchily as she saw the scene play out from her seat at the dining room table, her math book open in front of her and untouched.

Its not like Mabel was _trying _to spy on them or anything… its just that they always ended up hanging out in the living room couch right across from the table where she'd always done her homework.

_Also Rachel is so loud that they might as well be arguing right in the seat next to me, _Mabel griped to herself again. The fact that she could have simply gotten up and done her work in her room had probably occurred to her at some point, but some subconscious quirk had kept her from ever seriously considering the idea. Like heck she was changing _her _life just because Dipper's irritating girlfriend was around.

Mabel turned her eyes back to the text book again, trying to memorize the notes about functions but her concentration was interrupted yet again by Rachel's slightly shrill voice as she laughed at the television. She was leaning against Dipper's chest and snorting out obnoxiously at some reality show while her boyfriend looked on with a look of utter boredom on his face.

"So are we actually going to do any studying today or what?" Dipper asked, glancing back toward his discarded hat with a slight look of yearning, "The test is coming up at the end of the week and we're still a bit behind."

"I guess yeah," Rachel sighed in an annoyed tone of voice, reaching out with the remote to snap off the television.

Mabel groaned inwardly when the pair moved to join her at the table, cracking open their own textbooks.

Mercifully, Rachel had to go home earlier than usual that afternoon for some reason or another. Mabel felt only the tiniest bit of guilt at how glad she was about that – and even then only because Dipper had looked a little disappointed when Rachel gave him a perfunctory peck on the lips and then slouched off toward her car without a second glance back. He shut the front door with a sigh and went back to the dining room, pausing briefly in the living room to grab his hat and settle it firmly back on his head. He took his usual place at the table next to Mabel and glanced back down disinterestedly at his own text book.

"You doing alright there bro-bro? I mean, she just went home not off to fight in a war or something. You'll see her again tomorrow." Mabel said in a comforting tone of voice.

_Unfortunately, _she thought to herself in a private corner of her mind.

"Eh, its not that – I'm just kinda bummed about other things." Dipper said.

"Anything I could help with?" Mabel asked.

Dipper glanced up at her with a look of indecision.

"Well… I don't know, I'd feel kind of weird asking you for advice on this particular problem."

Mabel's face scrunched up in barely concealed uneasiness.

"This isn't a… um…" she wordlessly made a circle with her forefinger and thumb and then thrust the forefinger of her other hand through it, "sort of problem is it?"

"What?" he asked, briefly uncomprehending before the meaning of her lewd hand gesture dawned on him, "Oh, no! God no… no this is more of an emotional or behavioral kind of thing I guess… I mean, we haven't done anything like that yet."

"Oh thank god," Mabel said with a relieved sigh, "I mean, not that I don't want to be there for you bro but yeah…"

"Agreed." Dipper said quickly, reddening slightly at the ears.

"So, since we've firmly established that the problem isn't in the old 'where do babies come from' territory feel free to lay it on me, I'm awesome at advice." Mabel said cheerfully.

Dippers face once again took on a look of indecision, but after a few seconds of hesitation he gave himself a nod and turned back to Mabel.

"Well… I don't know, its about my relationship with Rachel. I'm not sure if it's going so great and I'm wondering what I'm doing wrong." Dipper said.

_Dating Rachel for one thing, _Mabel thought to herself.

"Well, I'm not really sure that any of the problems come from _you_ exactly," Mabel said as diplomatically as possible.

"I don't know, that's how it feels… I mean, she always seems pissed off at me about something and when we hang out things get kind of awkward sometimes… I just think maybe I'm screwing up somehow and not seeing where." Dipper said slightly nervously.

Mabel frowned slightly at the look on her brothers face.

"Have you ever considered the possibility it might be that _she _is the one with the problem?" she asked.

"What? No, Rachel's great… I mean she's… really strong willed and… um… she's pretty smart too." Dipper said.

"So is Waddles but that doesn't make him great boyfriend material." Mabel joked.

"Did you just compare my girlfriend to your pig?" Dipper said in an annoyed tone of voice.

"No, I was just pointing out that just because someone has good qualities doesn't make them a great romantic partner. Trust me, I've dated enough guys to know this for a fact." Mabel said firmly.

"I still think that this is probably something on my end… I mean, I've got almost no experience with this stuff," Dipper replied.

"Dipper, I've seen you guys together every day for a month – trust me, its her. Honestly I have no idea why you even wanted to go out with her in the first place." Mabel said firmly.

"What? Why wouldn't I?" Dipper asked.

"Because she's everything you hated about Pacifica rolled up with an annoying laugh and zero interest in your crazy conspiracy stuff. Seriously, I've seen better chemistry in English class." Mabel said.

"We have chemistry – I mean, we've kissed and stuff plenty of times!" Dipper objected.

"Please, I've seen what you guys call kissing – she doesn't kiss you like she means it." Mabel said hotly.

"What does that even mean?" Dipper said angrily.

Something snapped suddenly in Mabel's brain and before her rational mind could put up an objection she found herself grabbing Dipper by the front of his shirt and pulling his face roughly toward hers and jamming her mouth against his. The moment was probably only a few seconds but seemed to stretch on for much longer as her lips melted hotly with his, her teeth nipping lightly at his lower lip as her hands slipped up along his neck and tangled in his hair, knocking his cap off once again. She could feel his body stiffen in shock against hers before it suddenly grew loose and she felt his own hands tentatively reach out and run up and down her back, his own lips starting to kiss her back with energy.

She pushed him back suddenly onto his chair, her face red as a sunset and her breathing hard and unsteady.

_Crap, what did I just do?_

"THAT is how you kiss someone when you mean it." she said, a slight tremor in her voice and her eyes growing hot and wet.

Wordlessly, she quickly scooted her chair out from under the table and dashed off toward her room, slamming the door shut and locking it.

Dipper sat stunned at the table, staring at nothing in particular. He wasn't really sure what to say, but he certainly had a lot to think about at this moment… particularly on the subject of chemistry.


	3. Chapter 3

_Sir Dippingsauce of Dorkington_

"Okay, so how does this work again?" Mabel asked as she lay on her back on Dippers bed, her feet dangling over the edge and kicking idly into the air.

To Dipper's slight annoyance (and his more than slight embarrassment), Mabel had come barging into his room while he was doing homework and started digging around his backpack for his History class notes. She hadn't managed to find the notes (which were still in his locker back at school) but she _had_ found the fantasy gaming manual that he'd borrowed from a friend earlier that day. The book had piqued her curiosity and she'd been trying to get an explanation out of him for a while now until he'd finally given up on his homework entirely in order to answer her questions.

"Well… um… its a game where you pretend to be a character. Its sort of like a play, but without a script." Dipper said trying to wrack his brain to find the least dorky explanation for the hobby possible.

"Like improv or something like that? Okay, but if its a game then how do you win?" Mabel continued as she flipped through the thick book and squinted in confusion at a set of apparently nonsensical charts and tables full of numbers.

"You don't really win or lose, its more about the fun of playing the game." Dipper replied.

"For real? I thought that was just something they said to make people feel better about losing games. If no one wins, then how can you tell when the game is over?" Mabel pressed. A particularly garish illustration of a dragon blasting fire at a group of hapless adventurers caught her attention and she started flipping through the book with more interest to try and find any other fun illustrations that the manual might be hiding.

"I dunno, the game just sort of ends – usually when it gets late or someone has something else to do." Dipper shrugged, recalling the games he'd played in the past with his small group of nerdy friends which occasionally ran pretty late if they lost track of time.

"Sounds a bit confusing," Mabel said, "whats with all these chicks in here just wearing metal bras? You'd think that if they were gonna go out fighting monsters and stuff that they'd try to protect their tummy – I don't imagine thats a fun place to get stabbed."

"Yeah that is kind of dumb," Dipper agreed. He'd never really liked the chainmail bikini look… I mean, it was kinda sexy, but his practical brain just couldn't get over how stupid it was as a concept.

"And all the girl monsters in here have got their boobs flopping around all over the place. Kind of a pervy book don't you think?" Mabel said teasingly with a grin spreading across her face as she saw the way her brothers ears reddened at the question.

"Hey, don't blame me – I didn't draw them." Dipper said defensively, clearing his throat a little and pulling the brim of his old blue cap down slightly over his eyes.

"Okay, so if I've got this right – its a game that you can't win which lasts an unknown amount of time and you pretend to be a monster or something?" Mabel asked.

"Well you pretend to be someone who fights monsters, but otherwise not _entirely_ incorrect, yeah." Dipper said.

"That doesn't sound _entirely _lame. Whats with all these charts and tables and stuff though? Makes it kind of look like math-class porn or something." Mabel said.

"Its just stuff to keep track of how strong your character is mostly. Why do you want to know so much about this?" Dipper asked.

"I dunno, I like games – and this looked kind of weird and interesting." Mabel replied.

"You probably wouldn't like it," Dipper said, suddenly nervous at the level of interest his sister was showing, "I mean, its pretty dorky and all."

"Well yeah, you're involved in it so its got to be nerd city – but that doesn't mean it can't be fun too. I mean, you're a big dork and I still think you're really fun!" Mabel said with a grin as she poked Dipper playfully.

"Would you let me live in peace if I _didn't _agree to play this with you?" Dipper asked hopefully.

"Not a chance." Mabel said with a solemn shake of her head.

"Alright, suit yourself – but don't blame me if you get bored to tears half-way through." Dipper said grouchily.

"What's with these gnomes in here? They don't look anything like the real ones we've seen… they're a lot less creepy for one thing." Mabel said, ignoring her brothers snide comment with practiced ease as she flipped through the book.

"I didn't think the real ones looked too creepy… then again they weren't trying to marry _me _so maybe I just have a different view of them." Dipper reasoned.

"I should have kept the ring though– how many people can say they have a real life authentic piece of fairy jewelry? Yeah, they were creepy horrible little fairies, but still…" Mabel said wistfully.

"What did you end up doing with that thing anyway?" Dipper asked, curious.

"I think I traded it to Grenda for a 2 pound bag of gummy koalas." Mabel replied.

"Mabel Pines, financial wizard, ladies and gentlemen." Dipper said dryly as he fake-applauded.

"Can that be my character? A Financial Wizard! I'll bury monsters in un-repayable loans and get them busted for tax fraud and stuff."

"That's totally stu- huh… actually thats a pretty unique concept now that I think about it." Dipper said.

"I'm a natural at this stuff – I mean, I have been in like _every _school play since we were in elementary." Mabel replied cockily.

"Have you ever actually had a line in any of those plays though?" Dipper asked skeptically.

"I didn't need to – my performance as 'Moving Tree #5' in _Hamlet _speaks for itself. I made the drama teacher cry."

"You broke his toe."

"Well he should have given me a tree mask with bigger eye-holes if he didn't want me to stumble on his foot."

"Okay, so I'm not doubting your dramatic skills, its just… I don't know… I guess I'd feel kind of embarrassed sitting around pretending to be a dwarf or whatever with you in the same room." Dipper said haltingly, growing slightly red in the face at the confession.

"For reals? Dipper, I've known you all of your life – that is not even _close _to the most embarrassing thing that I've seen you do." Mabel said with a cheerful smile.

"Yeah, thats not really helping this situation much." Dipper said.

"C'mon, its not like its that different from when we used to play pretend as kids, right? What's the big deal… I mean, you've seen me in some pretty goofy situations."

"Oh, most definitely." Dipper said without hesitation.

"Plus, you're a guy who's fought _actual _monsters – is playing a little make-believe that hard by comparison?" Mabel asked, her voice dragging Dipper along with her all-too-convincing tone.

"Okay, when did this turn into you convincing _me _to play?" Dipper asked, clearly confused by this turn of events.

"When I decided I might want to try your nerd-game and you started getting all weird about it." Mabel replied.

"Alright… well, we can try this out then… but you really need more people for this kind of thing than just the two of us." Dipper said.

"Could we try like this though – you know, with just us two? We haven't really gotten to hang out much lately." Mabel said, the slightest hint of shyness tinging her voice.

"Well yeah… I guess we can. Sorry… about the not hanging out thing I mean…" Dipper replied, feeling slightly awkward in the wake of his sisters confession.

"Its alright, I mean – I know you aren't avoiding me or anything like that. I just kind of miss having you around since we've got a lot of different classes and totally different friends and stuff." Mabel returned, her eyes darting back to the book in her hands when Dipper had turned to look at her face.

"And you think pretending to be an elf with me would be a good way for us to re-connect?" Dipper asked.

"I'm up for trying anything once – and if its lame we can always watch a movie together or something instead." Mabel said cheerfully.

"Well when you put it that way it sounds good to me," Dipper said with a smile of his own. Truth be told he _had _been missing spending time with Mabel as well, and knowing her she might even manage to make this fun.


	4. Chapter 4

_Movie Night_

Dipper hunched low over the desk in his dorm room, his pencil scrabbling furiously as he worked his way through the last of the seemingly endless math problems that his professor had assigned earlier that day. Normally he preferred to work a little more methodically on the more difficult equations but he'd already lost some time earlier that day after an unexpected afternoon nap had cost him a few hours. Between his part-time job working as a TA in one of his science lab classes and his heavy course-load it wasn't surprising that his body had finally forced him down to try to catch up on some much needed sleep, but it was the timing that he'd found inconvenient. The clock on the wall was getting pretty close to seven and Dipper was really hoping that he could finish before too much longer – he had plans for the night.

Almost as if on cue Dipper heard the chime of his cell phone as it buzzed and rattled on the paper-strewn surface of his desk. He reached for it and checked the screen, smiling to himself as he saw the picture of his sister making an incredibly exaggerated winking face while her lips were pursed like a cartoon fish blowing a kiss– he had wanted to have a more normal picture of her for his phone but she had insisted that he use that shot and he'd given in after she'd bugged him about it for a solid hour. He'd vetoed her idea of her ring-tone being an old Sevr'l Timez song though just because she called him so often that he was sure he would have ended up tossing the phone through a window to escape the irritating sounds of the cloned boyband.

Dipper brought the ringing phone to his ear, "Hey Mabel – whats up?"

"What do you mean whats up? Its Friday isn't it?" Mabel snorted cheerfully.

"You noticed that too?" Dipper teased.

"I got clued in by all those calenders, they made it a bit of a dead giveaway." Mabel said in a serious tone.

"Movie night?" Dipper asked.

"Of course movie night! I grabbed this big collection of crazy old monster movies yesterday at a garage sale just for the occasion. Are you ready to get your face melted off nerd?" Mabel asked excitedly.

"Bring it." Dipper said as a cheerful grin started to spread unconsciously across his own face at the sound of his twins enthusiasm.

"Yeah! By the way, I'm crazy hungry – you wanna pick us up some food before you head over?" Mabel asked.

"Sure – is Chinese okay?" Dipper asked, "I've kind of been craving egg rolls today."

"Works for me, I'll get the drinks." Mabel replied.

"Sounds good, see you in a bit." Dipper said as he hung up the phone.

_Shoot! I thought there was still more time… Do I have enough time for a shower? Do I have anything clean to wear? _

Dipper cast his eyes about the room for a new shirt, wincing slightly to himself as he recognized just how messy it would have looked to anyone coming in – the piles of clothes scattered in mounds over the floor, the stacks of old books that leaned drunkenly against his unmade bed and the faded posters on the wall gave it what he would generously call "bachelor charm", but there was definitely a reason that the twins did most of their hanging out at Mabel's place. Muttering lies to himself about cleaning the room up tomorrow, Dipper began his hunt for something presentable to wear.

About an hour after the phone call Dipper pulled in to the parking lot of Mabel's dorm and made his way up the stairs to her door with a relatively clean shirt on his back and his arms full of take-out bags from one of the twins favorite restaurants in town.

"Special delivery!" Dipper called out at the blank face of the dorm room door, juggling the bags of food awkwardly around for a few minutes before the door swung open and Mabel greeted him with a smile. She glanced down and saw the bundle of white paper bags marked with a cartoon dragon logo and planted her arms in the door frame to block Dipper's entry.

"Did you remember to get those crunchy shrimp thingies that I like?" she asked with her eyes narrowed in an exaggerated glare.

"Got 'em right here," Dipper replied, shaking one of the white paper bags just a little to let the enticing smell waft through the air.

"Then you may enter," Mabel said with much ceremony, raising her arms to let him through as if she were a living toll booth.

"What did you get for drinks? Pitt? Iced tea?" Dipper asked as he made his way back toward the living room.

"Apple juice," Mabel said cheerfully as she bounced toward the kitchen. He heard her rattling around the fridge for a few moments as he set the bags down on the little table and started to spread out their meal.

"I didn't think the corner store had much of a juice selection." Dipper asked.

"Its the expired kind." Mabel replied as she came back into the room with a bottle of hard cider in each hand. "Hope you don't mind breaking the law a bit."

Dipper grinned as he reached out and grabbed a bottle from Mabel's outstretched hand- he felt his skin brush across her warm fingers before they touched the cool wet glass of the bottle and the sensation sent a pleasant tingle running down his arm.

"Its not really that I mind – I'm just curious how you were able to get it." Dipper said as he twisted the cap off his drink with a quick jerk and watched the smoky clouds of vapor start to seep out the top like the first signs of an emerging genie.

"You can go far in life with a kind word, a cute smile and a good fake ID," Mabel said with a wide grin. She reached into her pocket and tossed a small card toward Dipper that he was able to clumsily catch in his free hand.

"Where did you get this?" Dipper asked as he looked it over, not sure whether to be impressed or angry with her at the revelation. It certainly looked real enough, though anyone with sense would probably have realized that his 19 year old sister didn't look like she'd been born in 1973.

"I did it myself – it was a lot easier to make than all those counterfeit hundreds we did back when we were kids." Mabel said as she snatched the card back from her brothers fingers and slipped it out of sight once more.

"And our parents were worried that Stan was a bad influence." Dipper scoffed as he took a sip, enjoying the sweetness of the drink along with the slight bite of the alcohol stinging his throat. He wasn't really much of a drinker, but a little here and there wasn't bad… and it was a special night after all.

Mabel took a pull of her own cider and grinned back at him, "I know, what could they have been thinking? That old coot is just bursting with useful life skills – I mean, the things I learned about forgery alone could fill a book."

"Probably not one you'd want to be caught reading in front of a police station though." Dipper joked.

The two settled into the cheerful rhythm of their usual banter, joking back and forth as they ate their way through the contents of the small red-takeout boxes. Mabel had gotten up a few times throughout the meal to grab new ciders since the twins had finished off their first ones after only a few minutes and worked their way through the second ones fairly quickly as well. Dipper felt the stress of the days classes and tests melt away at the sound of Mabel's laughter in his ears and he felt the cider bringing a cheerful flush to his own face. Mabel had always joked that he was a lightweight when it came to alcohol, but he had noticed that her own tolerance wasn't much better than his for all of her Alpha-Twin posturing.

The last of the food was polished off and the twins cracked open their stale fortune cookies with much ceremony.

" 'A delightful surprise awaits you soon' -" Dipper read aloud.

"-in bed!" Mabel interrupted with a snorting laugh at the ancient joke.

"Why, are you planning something I should know about?" Dipper teased, and then felt his ears burn as he realized that he'd said it out loud. He usually wasn't so quick to joke about that sort of thing but the cider had loosened his tongue a bit.

"Maybe – you'll just have to wait and see." Mabel said with an exaggerated wink at him before she broke down into a fit of giggles.

"Pfft, shut up- what does yours say?" Dipper said, cursing at himself internally for blushing. He took another sip from his cider bottle to distract himself and found, to his disappointment, that he'd already finished it off a few minutes before.

" 'Live in the moment and you will never be lost', " Mabel read, her voice slurring ever so slightly.

"-in bed?" Dipper asked.

"That doesn't even make sense," Mabel said with a pout.

"I think the guys who write these things have started to catch on to that joke." Dipper said.

"Well its good advice anyway," Mabel said cheerfully, "so this one is going on the fridge."

She hopped up to her feet and made her way to the dorms tiny refrigerator and pinned the paper strip to the little cork-board she kept there which was covered in odd stickers, interesting pictures & various other odds and ends which she had collected in her semesters here at college. At the center of the board was an old photo of the two of them back when they were in highschool at some dance or another – Dipper couldn't remember which one since it wasn't actually a dance from _their _own school, but one from a nearby school that they had snuck into on a secret date. He stared at the picture, noticing how widely they were grinning while their arms were wrapped around one another's waists and thinking that Mabel looked gorgeous in her absurdly bright purple dress riddled with sequins. Dipper felt a warmth in his chest at the memory of that night… they'd only been in the opening stages of their relationship at that point, still feeling everything out and wracked with worry and doubt and guilt (or at least Dipper had been anyway), but that night they'd danced together without a care in the world, protected from all of that negativity by their anonymity. It was the first time that Dipper thought that maybe things would all work out for the best for the two of them, and so far life hadn't proved him wrong since they were still together now. He was so lost in his musings that he hadn't noticed Mabel had already grabbed the last of the ciders from the fridge and was dangling one in front of his unseeing eyes like a hypnotists pendulum. He took the drink gratefully and clinked the tip of his bottle with Mabel's as they grinned at one another widely. Her tipsy smile was almost a mirror to the one from the picture and the thought brought a pulse of happiness to him.

"You've got a pretty smile," Dipper said suddenly, "I don't think I tell you that enough."

"I could stand to hear it a little more," Mabel joked, beaming up at him happily in response. He noticed that a small blush had come over her cheeks, but he wasn't sure if it was from his compliment or from the warmth of the cider in her veins.

Dipper grinned and bent down to plant a quick kiss on Mabel's lips that lingered a little longer than he'd planned. She tasted like apples and soy sauce and that subtle flavor that he always thought of as 'Mabel' and when they broke the kiss they both leaned in together with their foreheads pressed against one another and goofy smiles plastered across their faces.

"I've missed seeing you," Mabel said quietly, her breath warm against his cheek.

"We saw each other a day ago," Dipper replied.

"Far too long," Mabel said dramatically, "I think I almost forgot what you looked like."

"Well, I missed you too." Dipper said, realizing as he said it just how much he meant it. It wasn't that they didn't get to see each other most days, but he had to admit that the days when they got to spend time together always felt brighter… somehow more _real_ than the days when class or work kept them apart.

"We should get our own place – dorm life's not all its cracked up to be… plus then you'd be able to stay the night without having to sneak out of the window on a rope made out of bedsheets." Mabel said.

"I can't believe we actually did that… I thought that was something that only happened in cartoons." Dipper said as he remembered the incident with a chuckle.

"I can't believe that it actually worked… well mostly – they did unknot when you were halfway down and you landed flat on your butt." Mabel laughed at the memory.

"Which is why we haven't done that again." Dipper said.

"Maybe we could set up some kind of zip-line or something?" Mabel pondered aloud, nuzzling her face closer to Dippers to plant a soft kiss at the corner of his mouth that made his lips tingle.

"I think that might be just a _tiny_ bit obvious," Dipper said, running his hand through the soft curls of Mabel's hair, loving how soft it was under his fingers.

"Where's your sense of adventure? Plus, can you think of a better way to start the day than zip-lining to class?" Mabel asked with mock seriousness, her lips brushing against his once again and sending Dippers heart pounding like crazy in his chest.

"I'd be up for that if it means waking up next to you every morning," Dipper replied. _That sounded a lot smoother in my head._

Mabel didn't seem to think it sounded too bad though, and she pulled Dipper in close to give him a full lingering kiss on the mouth. Dipper felt his thoughts all drift away like they always did when they were close like this, just enjoying the sensation of her tongue sweeping his mouth and hearing her muffled sighs in his ears. He gave a small shiver of happiness when he felt Mabel's fingers running through his scalp and felt her small strong arms encircle his neck to pull him closer to her while his hands drifted down her back and wrapped around her waist.

Mabel broke the kiss with a mischievous grin on her face at seeing the happily fogged look on Dipper's face – she had always thought it was cute how much of an effect she seemed to have on him at times like this.

"Hmm… I seem to recall there was some sort of reason that you were over tonight… I mean, other than fun makeout times of course." Mabel pondered aloud.

"Something about movies melting my face I think?" Dipper said, his voice slightly dazed from a combination of the alcohol that was finally catching up with him and the after-effects of the kiss.

"Oh, man – I almost forgot about those!" Mabel said, darting out suddenly and causing the slightly swaying Dipper to stumble at her sudden absence. He caught himself on the tables edge and tried to shake some of the unsteadiness from himself before glancing around to try and find where his sister had gone. A scrabble of noise caught his attention and he followed it to her room where she kept her small television and dvd player.

The contrast between Dippers somewhat squalid bachelor pad and Mabel's new dorm room was pretty pronounced – and if asked Dipper would probably grudgingly admit that he'd rather live somewhere that looked like this rather than his own place. Though she wasn't a neat-freak by any means Mabel kept her things pretty tidy and well organized and she tended to keep it brightly lit and cheerfully decorated which made the space look both larger and more cosy that it normally would. The one unfamiliar object in the room was a huge cardboard box with 'Movies' crudely written in marker on one side, and it was in the middle of the floor half-way between the bed and the small entertainment center perched on Mabel's work desk.

Dipper spotted Mabel hunched over the dilapidated looking cardboard box and muttering to herself excitedly. For a moment Dipper thought she looked like a cat that has just spotted a mouse as her hands tore through the colorful piles of plastic movie cases while she wiggled around excitedly and he barely suppressed a snort of laughter at the comparison.

_I think I might have had a bit more of the cider than normal if something like thats so funny to me, _he thought to himself.

"Aha!" Mabel said triumphantly, rising up from the colorful pile of dvd cases, holding one in each hand, before turning to Dipper.

"Ok bro, which do you think we should watch first – '_Were-Squatch 4: The Squatchening_'," she began.

"Arguably the best of the 9 movies in the _Were-Squatch_ saga," Dipper interjected.

"Without a doubt," Mabel agreed with a nod, "or option B: the action packed romantic/horror/alternate-history/drama '_Titanic vs. Roboctopus_'." The garishly illustrated DVD case showed a burst of metal tentacles emerging from an iceberg to snake their way around the hapless ocean liner while the passengers looked on in horror.

"That's a tough choice." Dipper said, rubbing his somewhat scruffy chin with exaggerated thoughtfulness. "I mean, they're both really _awful _but in a good way."

"What? C'mon these are classics!" Mabel objected.

"Yeah, but we've seen them before… do you have anything thats _really _scary?" Dipper asked. _And not just because I might want you to end up snuggling up to me during a creepy scene or anything like that… _

"Scary? Hmmm… I don't know if I've got anything here that would creep _me_ out too bad… but I do have a copy of the 80's children's masterpiece _'Bear-O's Day Out' _…" Mabel began, reaching toward the box of dvds threateningly with an evil grin.

"Actually _'Were-Squatch' _sounds great right about now." Dipper said far too quickly as he snatched the movie from Mabel's hand, feeling a little shudder run through him that he couldn't quite suppress.

"I still can't believe I'm dating a guy who's afraid of puppets," Mabel teased as she hopped up onto her bed across from the television and started making a nest of pillows and blankets for the two of them.

"How would you feel about going sky-diving for our next date?" Dipper asked with forced casualness as he took the dvd case with the blood-stained bigfoot on its cover and slipped the disc into the player.

"Okay, heights is a way better fear than puppets – I mean, only one of them is actually dangerous." Mabel replied defensively.

"So you agree with me that puppets look like they are hiding something?" Dipper asked in a deadpan voice as he fiddled around with Mabel's finicky old dvd player and got their movie all set up for the nights viewing.

"Pfft, just get in here nerd." Mabel said with a grin as she lifted up a flap from the blanket cocoon she had constructed. Dipper didn't need to be told twice and joined her in bed, wrapping his arms around Mabel's waist as they pulled the warm blankets over themselves and settled in for a night of monster movies… as well as a few other activities which ended up distracting them from the movies, but that wasn't anything unusual. In the few years since the twins had started this tradition they hadn't managed to have a movie night where they had even made it all the way through one movie without interruption, but neither of them had ever seemed to mind.


	5. Chapter 5

_Laundry_ _Day_

"Dipper – the smell test is for milk, not clothes!" Mabel sighed from the doorway to their bedroom, rolling her eyes in exasperation.

Dipper glanced up guiltily, dropping the shirt he'd been holding up to his nose back onto the untidy pile of clothes that leaned up against his side of the bed. He'd run out of clean shirts almost a week ago and was trying to cycle through the least dirty of his used ones, hoping that Mabel hadn't noticed but that ship had clearly sailed now.

Mabel shook her head and made her way to the closet, pulling out the hamper that her brother never seemed to use in favor of the "just drop it anywhere" method of clothing storage. She had been living with Dipper now for almost a month after the two had left their dorms in exchange for a small apartment close to the campus and while it had been great in a lot of ways there were a few things that she had to admit had been annoying her. Its not that she really regretted the decision to move in together since the twins now had much more time to spend with one another compared to their old arrangement. Pretty much everything about it had been great from the shared meals cooked together in the kitchen to the weird movie marathons or hours wasted playing old games with each other. In general they got along perfectly since they'd already been used to living with each other for pretty much their entire lives ("_one of the advantages I have over most girls who move in with their boyfriends in college_") but she couldn't deny that Dippers sloppiness when it came to their now-shared room was starting to get on her nerves.

_How can a guy who's so obsessed with lists and rules and plans and junk live like such a pig? Wait, scratch that – Waddles wasn't nearly this messy most of the time._

"Alright Dippingsauce, clear your calender because its Laundry Day." Mabel announced, plopping the hamper down on her brothers side of their shared bed.

"Mabel I don't have time for that – I've got tons of homework to do for biology, I still have to work on a paper for my detective literature class and -" Dipper began, listing items off on his fingers before Mabel cut him off.

"I get it, you're a busy man – but, and I'm saying this as someone who loves you, your clothes are starting to get kind of a funk about them and its getting a little noticeable. Seriously, I'm expecting to look up and see literal wavy green lines floating off you if you keep this up much longer." Mabel said flatly.

"Well, I always take a shower before I put them on – thats kind of like washing them, right?" Dipper asked with a very slight pleading note in his voice.

"Dipper, quit being a butt and just start putting your stuff in here – we're taking a trip to the laundromat." Mabel pronounced, waving the empty hamper at him threateningly.

"Ugh… fine. Its just so boring there though, it feels like a huge waste of time." Dipper said.

"Well I have some stuff to wash too, so I can keep you company while you give your wardrobe a much needed soak. We can waste time together." Mabel replied with a smile.

"That does make it seem a bit better." Dipper said, brightening slightly.

"Darn straight it does – a little vitamin Mabel is all you need to improve any situation." Mabel said with an exaggerated nod of self-satisfaction.

"No arguments from me," Dipper said with a fond smile of his own.

"Enough of the flattery – start getting your junk together, if we hurry up we can get this stuff done before it gets too late." Mabel said, feeling a surge of happiness at the way he looked at her.

"Alright, I totally will – just let me finish up these last couple of problems for bio, okay? I'm on a roll here and don't want to lose my train of thought." Dipper asked, his hands clasped to her in mock prayer.

Mabel rolled her eyes and sighed, "Alright – but don't take too long on that stuff ok? I guess I can do my homework till you get done too."

Happy that he had managed to procrastinate his way out of this particular chore just a little longer, Dipper turned back to his textbook with a bit more satisfaction than usual.

* * *

"I can't believe that its already midnight!" Mabel griped as the twins dragged their overstuffed baskets of dirty clothes down the second floor of the old apartment building and to the small side building where the communal washers and dryers were located.

"Yeah, I guess the homework and stuff took just a little longer than I expected." Dipper said with a slightly guilty shrug.

"The homework took a bit of time I'm sure – and then there was that shopping trip since you suddenly remembered that we were out of milk which took even longer… and of course there just had to be a _Ducktective_ marathon on that you thought would be fun to watch-"

"Okay, in my defense you totally agreed that the marathon would be worth watching too." Dipper said quickly.

"Alright, I'll give you that last one… but still, this really wasn't something I wanted to be doing so late. That old laundromat building is creepy as heck in the dark – I always feel like some kind of masked axe-maniac is going to jump out at me when I'm in the middle of drying stuff." Mabel said.

"Well its not like you're all alone, he'd have to go through me first." Dipper said confidently.

"He wouldn't have to go through anyone if we'd just come earlier when there was still daylight." Mabel grumbled.

"Well he doesn't actually exist so its not really a problem… anyway we've run into so many weird monsters and junk that I'd almost welcome a plain old crazy masked killer. Well, from a distance at least that is." Dipper replied.

"Pfft, don't be so quick to dismiss crazy masked killer guys – I think we've both seen enough 80's horror movies to know that you wouldn't stand a chance." Mabel said breezily as she levered open the creaky old door to the laundry room and flipped on the lightswitch.

The bare yellow bulb overhead flickered and buzzed, casting dim radiance around the cramped row of washers and dryers lined up along the wall and a small table propped up against the back wall. Dipper felt himself grow just slightly tense inside at the look of the room despite his best effort to play it cool. _I wonder if the architect made the place look this creepy on purpose?_

"Okay, why would I not stand a chance against some jerk with an axe? I fought a giant robot when I was twelve." Dipper protested, shaking off the momentary feeling of disturbance.

"Well for one thing you beat up a guy inside a giant robot, you didn't actually beat up the robot itself. Don't get me wrong, it was still completely awesome when you did that, but its not exactly the same thing." Mabel said.

"Alright, I'll give you that one." Dipper grumbled as he set down his clothes hamper and started loading his stuff haphazardly into one of the machines.

"Anyway, the fact is that crazy mask guys almost always kill off boys without any problem – its girls that stand a chance to get away and manage to take them out in the end." Mabel said matter of factly.

"Seems a little unfair of them." Dipper said dryly.

"I mean, obviously I'm the main character so since you're my boyfriend thats practically a death sentence when one of those type of guys show up." Mabel said.

The wind suddenly howled ominously outside, rattling the dusty windows of the laundry room and shaking the old wooden door in its creaky hinges.

"How about we talk about something else?" Dipper said with a slightly brittle chuckle.

"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea." Mabel agreed as she started to load her own clothes into a different machine, showing considerably more care than Dipper.

The twins stayed quiet for a few moments as they busied themselves with the chore of getting the laundry under way. Mabel had just finished sorting the rest of her own items into piles before turning to check on Dippers progress and rolled her eyes at the sight of her brother just trying to jam everything into one over-stuffed machine.

"Seriously Dipper? You're nineteen years old and you don't even know how to wash your clothes right?" Mabel said.

"What? I'm putting it all in the machine with the soap and stuff – I thought the whole point of using a machine was that it did the work for you." Dipper said.

"Yeah, but you're just stuffing it all together – darks, lights, heavy stuff and light stuff – its going to come out a mess."

"I'm pretty okay with that." Dipper replied, grunting with effort as he tried to crush down the lid of the machine over the pile of clothes crammed into it.

"Alright, get away from the machine before someone gets hurt," Mabel said, walking over and pulling her brothers clothes out of the washer and piling them on the bare concrete floor.

"What are you doing?"

"Well you helped me out with my algebra and stuff when we were in high school, so I'm going to teach you how to do this – which is something that you actually _use_ in real life." Mabel said.

Dipper sighed, but after a few friendly jabs he joined his sister as she explained the basics – it really wasn't that difficult and honestly he knew that he was being kind of childish putting it off as long as he had. In almost no time at all they had sorted his dirty clothes into piles similar to the ones that Mabel had set up and Dipper was congratulating himself on being just _slightly_ more of an adult than he had been earlier that afternoon. He started to load in the newly sorted wad of shirts into an open machine when he felt a tug at his sleeve.

"You should probably throw this one in while you're at it – I don't know how long you've had that shirt but I'm pretty sure I've never seen you wash it once." Mabel said, inspecting his old t-shirt critically.

Dipper glanced down at his faded old Pterodactyl Bros shirt and did note a few small stains here and there. _And there. And there too. Wow… have I actually never washed this one?_

"Okay, I admit it might need a good wash… but I don't know though – its not like I have another shirt to put on right now." he said, slightly hesitantly.

"What? C'mon, you're a dude – you are totally allowed to go around shirtless and not get in trouble. Just throw it in now and you will have less stuff to wash later." Mabel said teasingly.

"Oh yeah, one whole shirt less- think of the savings on detergent." Dipper said with a roll of his eyes, but he did slip the shirt up over his head and throw it into the open machine, feeling slightly self conscious about being bare chested out in what was technically a public place.

Mabel seemed to sense his mood and gave him a cheering smile, "Come on bro-bro, its past midnight and its not like we live in a super packed building anyway – I'm pretty positive no one is going to suddenly come in and get all flustered at the sight of your torso."

"What, you think my torso's not worth getting flustered over?" Dipper asked, his voice full of mock indignation.

"Oh I didn't say that," Mabel reassured him equally playfully, reaching her hand out and running a finger lightly down his chest, "I think it can be pretty flustering sometimes. I was just saying that no one else is going to be coming in to see it. Its just you and me right now."

Dippers ears started getting red and he felt his heart beating a bit faster at the feel of Mabel's hand on him… and as he considered what she was just saying. _All alone huh…._

"Well, thats easy for you to say – its not like you're the one standing here topless in a laundry room." Dipper said, almost immediately regretting it. _Okay, there is no way thats going to work…_

Mabel quirked an eyebrow at Dippers reddening face and smiled. "Hmmm, couldn't make it a little more obvious could you?" she said teasingly.

"Yeah sorry," Dipper said sheepishly.

"Did you seriously think I would fall for that? Thats some playground level reverse psychology Dip." Mabel said with a laugh.

Dipper coughed, slightly too embarrassed to speak, and turned back to finish loading up the washing machines with his clothes.

"Then again…" Mabel said slowly, "My shirt could probably use a good wash too."

She grinned to herself as she saw Dipper turn his eyes toward her, clearly trying not to stare as she slipped out of her own shirt before tossing it in her own pile of clothes, exposing her cute polka-dot patterned bra and quite a bit of skin besides. On an impulse she stretched her arms out overhead with a fake yawn and had to stifle a giggle at the sight of Dippers eyes practically bugging out of his head, obviously losing the battle with himself not to stare. To her surprise she felt herself starting to get a bit flustered by the situation as well.

"Whats with that look?" she asked him jokingly, "Its not like you haven't seen me like this before – actually you've seen quite a bit more if I recall correctly." she added with an exaggeratedly saucy waggle of her eyebrows.

"Well yeah, but its always a great sight," Dipper said earnestly and Mabel felt a little flutter in her stomach at the tone of open admiration in his voice.

"Are you sure its not just because we're out here in the open? If I didn't know any better I'd say you had a bit of an exhibitionist streak." Mabel teased, reaching out to playfully poke Dipper on his bare chest. Her hands lingered after the playful gesture though, running up over his shoulder and down his arm as she enjoyed the feel of his skin against hers. _Okay, more than just a bit flustered_, she admitted to herself.

Dippers own hands reached out to encircle Mabel's waist, sliding their way up her back, his fingertips trailing along her spine in that way that always set her nerves tingling pleasantly. They were each standing very close now, warm bare skin pressing together and with her eyes locked with Dippers as he smiled down at her.

"What would you think if I said that I did?" he asked, his earlier nervousness seeming to have been overpowered by the much stronger feelings that were currently in control.

Mabel felt her own heart starting to beat a bit faster and in response she slipped her arms around Dippers neck, pulling him in close to her for a kiss that took him by surprise. He didn't stay stunned for long though, and in a few moments she was sighing happily as she felt his fingers stroking through her hair while he kissed his way down from her lips to that delightfully ticklish patch of skin between her neck and shoulder. She ran her own fingers through Dippers hair and bent her head low, clamping her teeth gently on his earlobe and giggling at the moan he stifled at the feeling of her hot breath in his ear.

"Do you think we should get the rest of our clothes ready to wash too?" she whispered huskily into the shell of his ear.

"Whu?" Dipper said, clearly too distracted to have understood her meaning.

"Take off your pants dummy." Mabel said more plainly before she slammed her lips against his for a searing kiss that left both of them wide eyed and panting, their trembling hands reaching out to tug the remaining clothes from each others bodies.

The pair eventually succeeded in stripping one another, though there was one awkward moment when Dipper nearly tripped over his own pants that temporarily sent Mabel into a fit of giggles before he pulled her in close and tilted her head back for another kiss that drove the laughter right out of her mind. Mabel found herself biting down just a bit on Dippers lip to stifle a moan when she felt his hand slide up her bare thigh and then stroke over her in that _just right_ way that felt almost electric as it sent little jolts shuddering through her body. Not one to be defeated so easily she slid her own hand down his side and took a hold of what she affectionately called (to his eternal annoyance) "the little dipper", smiling triumphantly to herself at the dreamy distracted look that came over his face as she ran her hands up and down him.

"Where?" Dipper asked, looking around the room quickly. She got his meaning instantly just by the tone of his voice.

Mabel turned her head and checked around the place with searching eyes – they'd worked each other up too far to want to stop now but the old laundry room didn't give them a lot of options.

"Table!" Mabel said, pointing at the old piece of furniture happily, like a kid who had just found the last easter egg. She gave a little shriek of surprised laughter when Dipper nodded and then lifted her up off her feet with a grunt before he staggered over to the old fold up table to plop her down on it, breathing a little heavily either from excitement or (more likely) from the effort of carrying her across half the room.

"Someone's feeling extra manly tonight," Mabel joked, playfully squeezing his bicep. Dipper wasn't exactly an athlete, but she had to admit that he'd filled out pretty good in the last couple of years and it was a trend that she approved of.

"I kind of always wanted to do something like that," Dipper admitted with a silly grin that set Mabel's heart fluttering almost as much as his earlier caresses had.

"Well, I kind of always wanted you to," Mabel purred back, beckoning him closer with a wave of her hand.

She scooted herself up to the edge of the table as he drew closer and she felt a sharp gasp hiss out from between her teeth when Dipper bent his head low and took one of her nipples into his mouth, rolling his tongue over her sensitive skin. Mabel tangled her fingers through his messy mop of brown hair, trailing her nails gently against his scalp as he pressed himself up against her and she ground herself back against him in response with small grunts that were equal parts pleasure and frustration. It felt good, _really_ good but she wanted more right now. She _needed_ more. Mabel took a firm hold of Dippers hair and gently pulled his head up from her chest and when their eyes met she felt a jolt shoot through her when she saw the raw need for her shining in his eyes - that he wanted to be with her as much as she wanted him. She nodded once with her eyes half lidded and her bottom lip clamped in her teeth in that way she knew always drove him crazy. Dipper pulled her flushed face to his in response, kissing Mabel passionately as he tried awkwardly to find an angle that would work at the same time. It wasn't as easy as he had hoped, and Dipper grunted out several frustrated curses before Mabel darted her hand down and helped him guide his way in, both of them groaning happily when she finally felt him sliding into her.

They moved with a clumsy rhythm at first, Dippers legs shaking from the unfamiliar angle and Mabel feeling unsteady perched up on the rickety old table but before long they felt that familiar fire building up between them that sent her long creamy legs wrapping tightly around his hips to hold him inside her. Mabel's mind was buzzing with electric jolts of wordless pleasure and she clung tightly to Dipper, her short nails digging into his back almost painfully hard. Time became a blur of endless moments made out of the smell of sweat, the sound of their panting breaths mingling in the air and the feel of his lips pressing against her own as he moved inside her urgently. The washing machines ground to a halt, unheeded in the background as Mabel felt herself get suddenly overloaded with waves of sensation, a long screaming moan that was half words and half noise tearing out of her throat as her toes curled up tight enough to cramp. Dipper was just moments behind her, shuddering out with a stifled groan as he suddenly tensed up, clutching Mabel tight to his sweat soaked chest when he tried to stay steady on his shaking legs.

Mabel leaned her head wearily against Dippers shoulder, sighing contentedly as her sweat dampened curls plastered against her skin.

"I love you," he whispered into her ear, his voice shaky and hoarse from exertion.

"I know," she replied with a dizzy smile on her face, "I love you too you big goober,"

* * *

Mabel smiled happily to herself as she slipped a toasty warm shirt, fresh out of the dryer, over her head – the night air had gotten a bit chilly after the pair had cooled off from their earlier fun and they'd been huddling together on top of the table for warmth waiting for the last of the loads to finish drying.

"Okay, I have to admit," Dipper said as he pulled a fresh clean pair of pants up, "laundry might not be as boring as I previously thought."

"Like I said, all you need is a little vitamin Mabel to make anything better," Mabel replied as she slipped on her own pair of shorts.

"You got that right," Dipper agreed with a vigorous nod.

"Next time though, lets try and get the laundry done earlier before we have any sexy fun times – I get less splinters in my butt when we've got a real bed to work with." Mabel said.

"Fair enough," Dipper said happily.


	6. Chapter 6

_Summer in December _

The sun was low in the sky and the air had a biting chill that made Dippers breath come out in small puffs of vapor as he made his way out from the office building and back to his car. The snowflakes spiraling down from the sky above may have all been unique and beautiful in their own way but when they landed cold and damp on Dippers bare head and ran in wet droplets down his neck he could barely suppress a curse. It had been years since he'd moved out here but Dipper was still a California boy at heart and the winters up here in the northern half of Washington state always put him in a bad mood when they came blowing in. Dipper fumbled through his pockets for the car keys with fingers numbed by the biting wind, grateful at least that the incredibly thick scarf that Mabel had knitted up for him last week was keeping his ears and neck warm. He made his way into the car and leaned back into the seat in relief to be out of the icy wind and caught sight of the scarf in the rear view mirror, a plush monstrosity wider than his hand and with a little pattern of blue pine trees artfully woven into it in the field of soft white wool. He reached up and ran his hands over the thickly knit strands of yarn, feeling a warm surge inside that had nothing to do with the garment but everything to do with its creator.

The old blue sedan made its way through the parking lot slowly, wary for any patches of ice that the maintenance crew might have missed and got onto the road. _I wonder what she's up to right now? _Dipper found himself thinking idly as he weaved cautiously though the rush hour traffic of the city.

_I think she said she had the day off, so maybe she got started on dinner? _Dipper felt his stomach rumble appreciatively at the thought. _That would be good… I cooked last night, so I guess that would make it her turn?_

_At least, I _think_ that makes it her turn, _Dipper thought to himself. _Its not like we have any kind of schedule or anything, and with Mabel it can be hard to tell if she's in a domestic mood._

The twins didn't have any kind of schedule for cooking… they actually didn't have much in the way of formal arrangements or rules or contracts when it came to their unconventional living arrangement. The whole setup seemed so fragile to Dipper sometimes, held together with a curious mixture of hope and luck and a healthy dollop of deception (though never between themselves). Dipper sometimes found himself lying awake in the middle of the night wondering how things had worked out this way… wondering how he could be so lucky, but at the same time terrified at the prospect that this was all temporary. There was a nagging fear that he had been just living a dream that he would be forced to wake up from at any moment and that she'd be gone when he opened his eyes. He would pull Mabel just a little closer to himself on those nights as she made sleepy little noises of protest at being jostled around and just lose himself in the scent of her hair or that odd tingling feeling he got whenever he felt her skin pressed to his and try to push all that negativity into the back of his mind. Most nights he'd succeed, but the winters darkness had put him a bit more on edge than he normally was.

The honk of a horn, shrill and angry in the cold winter air shook Dipper from his wandering thoughts and he realized that the red light he'd been stopped at must have been green for quite a while judging by the number of cars that had started to drive around him. He turned his head just in time to catch the sight of another driver flipping him off as they passed him by with a squeal of their tires against the snow-flecked asphalt.

_Get your head back in the game man, _Dipper thought – _Just do like Mabel says, live in the moment. _

He smiled at the thought. Growing up, everyone had been impressed with Dippers grades and his level-headedness, but his nervous energy and borderline paranoia had always been a problem. When he was with Mabel though he didn't feel all that stress or pressure- no need to get the highest grades or submit the best project when she was there reassuring him that she'd care about him no matter how well he did. She made him stronger when she was with him, gave him the confidence to do things that he might never have been able to do.

He felt the urge to see her now, a strong tug deep in his chest and he unconsciously pressed just a bit harder on the gas than normal and started to weave his way through the traffic and back toward their apartment.

–

Dippers knock on the door went unanswered and he eventually fished his keys out and opened the door to the apartment. As the door swung open a blast of absolutely sweltering air washed over Dippers face. Even accounting for how cold it was outside the air felt incredibly hot, and in just a few moments after stepping into the room he felt a few beads of sweat start to roll down the back of his neck. Unlike any other day he didn't spot Mabel watching TV on the couch or hear her singing along out of tune to some of her music blaring out from the stereo- in fact when he shut the door he found that the apartment was dark and silent. Dipper felt a sudden tightness in his chest.

_Is she home? Did something happen? _

"Hello?" Dipper called out, cursing his voice for sounding more nervous than he felt it should.

He turned and flipped on the light switch and found, to his consternation, a pineapple sitting in the middle of the living room floor. He set his briefcase down by the door and tossed his jacket across the back of the old sofa chair in the living room.

"Mabel, whats with the fruit?" he called out to the still silent apartment. The air was stifling hot and Dipper unconsciously reached up and loosened his tie to try to get some air on his neck.

Silence answered him. He walked over and picked up the pineapple, giving it a quick once over. It didn't look any different from any regular fruit of that breed- no hidden clues or messages that he could see concealed in its leaves.

Dipper looked around and spotted another pineapple near the couch by the hallway and walked over to it.

"This isn't a very good Easter egg hunt." Dipper said. As he neared the second pineapple he saw a line of three more leading straight down the hall and stopping just outside the bedroom door which had incredibly bright light streaming out from under the doorway.

_O…kay. This is a bit weird._

Dipper stalked carefully down the hall and put his hand on the doorknob, taking a deep breath to mentally prepare in case he was being set up for one of his sisters frequent practical jokes. With a nod to himself he threw open the door.

There was a pool in the bedroom.

Dipper blinked twice, positive that it was real but hoping that maybe he had just gone crazy instead.

_Nope… it's still here._

The bed seemed to have disappeared and been replaced with a cheap inflatable pool of the type that he and Mabel had used to splash around in when they were little kids growing up in their parents house. He blinked and narrowed his eyes against the dazzling glare of a number of sunlamps that had been scattered around the corners of the room and as Dippers vision returned he noticed other signs of Mabel's handiwork. A quick glance around the room revealed that there seemed to be streamers that looked like cheap Hawaiian lei's hanging down from the ceiling and a large and obviously homemade poster of a sun thumbtacked to the ceiling over the pool which sloshed gently in the space that their bed used to occupy. The cartoon sun was wearing sunglasses and manic grin.

"Well, how do you like it?" a voice rang in his ear loudly and he jumped slightly with a barely suppressed shout caught in his throat.

He turned to see Mabel standing behind him with a wide grin plastered across her face and dressed in a red and white polka dot swimsuit top and long gauzy skirt of scarlet fabric. There was a flower tucked in her long chestnut curls, just behind one ear.

"Mabel," Dipper croaked, his mind torn between the sight of Mabel's charming outfit and the rooms unusual new décor. "How? _Why_?"

"Well the how is easy – there's nothing that you can't do with a bit of determination, some spare time and a shrinky-crystal," Mabel said brightly as she reached out to the shelf right next to her and plucked up a small object which she handed to her brother. It was their bed, reduced to the size of a toy car.

"Impressive," Dipper said, and he meant it, "but I'm still kind of confused about the why."

"As for that," Mabel began, stepping in close to him and putting her arms around her twins neck to give him a soft kiss on the lips, "its because I think that you needed a bit of summer vacation."

"Its December." Dipper said drily, still enjoying the tingling feeling of her lips brushing against his.

"Exactly!" Mabel said, "You turn into kind of a moody butt in the winter-time, so I thought that I'd bring the summer to you- at least for a day anyway."

Warmth surged up in Dippers chest and he felt a grin start to overtake his face to match Mabel's. That nagging little voice of practicality in the back of his mind reminded him that they were on the second floor and that their downstairs neighbors might not appreciate having water raining down on them through the ceiling but he stifled the thought quickly. She'd gone to a lot of effort to do this and he wasn't going to just Dipper it all up and bring her mood down.

"That's really sweet Mabel," he said softly and he tried to pull her in for another kiss, but she slipped out of his arms quickly and skipped just out of his reach.

Mabel reached down to her hips and slipped the skirt off to reveal the matching piece to her swimsuit top and slipped into the water with a sigh. She turned to face Dipper with a smile and waggled her eyebrows at him exaggeratedly, "Well, aren't you going to join me? I didn't pipe all this hot water from the bathtub over here for nothing."

Dipper laughed and started to undo the buttons on his shirt. _At times like this there's no point in worrying about anything._

_Just live in the moment._


	7. Chapter 7

**Some background on this story - it is a Reverse Pines story and takes place in the AU where the twins are essentially their worlds version of Lil Gideon, like in my other story 'Wrong Place, Right Time'. It makes no sense in normal continuity.**

_Only_

Mabel looked beautiful in black. It was a sight that Dipper had seen only rarely since she preferred to wear the most garishly bright colors on stage during their performances- odd costumes covered in sequins and gems that shone with the weird metallic gleam of an insects wing. She was beautiful then as well, but it was a strangely artificial beauty, and in his own mind Dipper had always felt that the excessive glitter and gleam detracted from Mabel's natural charms rather than enhancing it.

There was none of that now though – her clothing today was comparatively sombre: a tight black sweater of fine soft material, a long black skirt of conservative cut and sensible shoes (also black, with dull silver buckles). She had also done away with her usual bold makeup for the day in favor of more muted colors, and Dipper was surprised to see that she wore a plain black silk ribbon in her hair in place of the headband which contained her aquamarine amulet.

He hadn't seen her without it for months now- she even wore it to bed, and Dipper was sure that it must have been having some effect on her dreams since she would twitch and moan oddly in her sleep beside him while it pulsed with an unhealthy green light. He reached up unconsciously toward his collar and found only the rough texture of a normal tie there – he remembered that he had left his own amulet up in a small chest in his room. He felt oddly naked without it, but it wouldn't have felt right to wear it today.

_Even _I _have some standards, _he thought unhappily.

Mabel turned her face toward him, snapping him out of his wandering thoughts. Mentally he was preparing himself for another one of their usual rounds of good natured verbal fencing, but at the sight of his sisters expression his mind immediately shifted gears. It had been a long time since he had seen Mabel cry, but he could see the tears glimmering in the corner of her eyes, poised to fall. His response was automatic, moving in close and wrapping his arms around her shoulders to pull her face to his chest.

She didn't cry out or sob loudly, but he could feel by the trembling of her shoulders that she wanted to. Dipper could feel Mabel's tears soaking through the stiff material of his black shirt, and he bent his head low over hers to murmur soothing sounds while he ran a comforting hand through her thick brown curls.

"He's not coming back." Mabel whispered, her voice heavy with all the words that the sentence had left unsaid.

"No. He isn't." Dipper replied quietly, feeling a sharp pang run through his own chest as he said it.

_We made sure of that, _he thought to himself savagely.

It had been necessary. Absolutely necessary.

That didn't mean that it hadn't hurt though.

Thunder rumbled low, shaking the heavy beams of the manors high ceiling. Mabel glanced up and out toward the window, her eyes widening at the sight of the heavy black clouds boiling out of the sky around the mountain, choking the sun from the sky. Heavy raindrops began to patter down musically against the glass panes.

"I'd thought the weather report said today was going to be sunny?" Mabel asked, a small current of curiosity running through her sad tone.

"Well, you know how unreliable weathermen can be…" Dipper said, his eyes carefully shifting to avoid her gaze.

He caught a faint hint of a smile turning up the corners of her mouth and she gave him a gentle poke in the belly, the sort of playful touch she hadn't done in years.

"C'mon, spill it- this has Dipper written all over it." she said, her voice sounding lighter.

"I _may _have looked up a few spells to control the weather last night after you went to bed." Dipper said sheepishly, running his fingers nervously through his hair.

"Wow… that's a pretty nice one. I didn't even know that was even possible." Mabel said, sounding impressed as a crash of thunder rumbled the windowpanes.

"It actually took quite a bit of effort – I don't expect I'll be doing any sort of conjuring for a while till I can regain my strength." Dipper admitted.

"Why?" she asked, her tone somewhat sharper.

"Because it didn't seem right to bury him on a sunny day. He deserved better than that." Dipper said, his voice flat.

"Making the entire sky cry at his funeral… he would probably have appreciated the showmanship." Mabel said, stifling a sniffle that threatened to shatter her fragile smile.

Dipper cupped her chin in his hands and brought her face up to his, bending low to plant a soft kiss on her coral pink lips. Her mouth was stiff against his at first, but after only a moment her arms flew around his neck and pulled his face against hers as she returned the kiss with savage heat. Even without his amulet Dipper could feel the raw pulse of emotion and energy thrumming under his sisters skin, currents of grief and desire and even a few faint threads of guilt writhing through her mind like serpents made of thought. He twined his fingers through the silken curls of her hair, tugging her face harder against his as he returned her energy in kind. The kiss ended all to soon, but it left him feeling somehow cleaner… as if he had doused his soul in fire and burned out all of its flaws and impurities.

"I love you." she whispered softly, making it sound half endearment and half curse.

"I love you too. Only you." Dipper replied firmly, his fingers twined tightly with hers.

"Only you." she echoed, reaching her hand up to stroke her soft fingertips gently against the line of his jaw.

A few years ago Dipper could have counted the number of people that he truly cared about on one hand. That was before the amulets… before the Change had come over him… before he and Mabel had become what they we're to each other. Time and circumstances had whittled that number down slowly and as of this week there was now only Mabel left.

_There will only _ever _be Mabel now, _he thought to himself. There was no anger or sadness in that thought… she had always mattered most to him, and that had not diminished at all.

Still, it had been a shame – he had loved Stan in his own way… killing him had been like putting a beloved pet to sleep.

"Shall we go? The service will be starting soon." Dipper said, shaking the maudlin thoughts out of his mind.

"Can we enjoy the storm just a little longer first? Its not like they can start without us… we're all the family he had left." Mabel said with a sigh as she leaned herself against Dippers arm.

"Alright… a few minutes more then." Dipper said as he pulled his arm up around her shoulder and squeezed her tight against his chest.

Yes, one by one the other connections had fallen away. Friends… enemies… family. Now there was only one. His sister, his partner, his lover, his queen.

In all of the whole wide world there was only Mabel.


	8. Chapter 8

_Plans_

It had been almost 43 days since Dipper had last seen Mabel. It would be _exactly _43 days when the clock on the wall ticked down to 7:35 PM, the minute he'd lost sight of her face as he was driven off in his fathers car to the Mystery Shack. He'd remembered turning away from the empty rear window and seeing those exact numbers blinking there, red and angry looking in the dashboard of the car.

There hadn't been music playing in the radio and no words had been spoken during the hours of the trip. Dipper hadn't been sure that he would have been able to open his mouth without releasing a torrent of profanity and _that_ wasn't going to help his case so he had kept his thoughts to himself. His father hadn't said _anything _to him since they'd been caught by his mother the day before… he wouldn't respond to anything that either of them had said either. He just stared ahead at the road, blinking rarely and occasionally clearing his throat with a sound like thunder in the otherwise silent vehicle.

_Guess it really must have been a pretty serious shock, _Dipper thought to himself a month and a half away from that car ride, and inclined to be more generous than he had been at the time.

It had been so _stupid _that they had even gotten caught in the first place. For months the twins had been so careful – making absolutely _sure _that they were completely alone before they would even do so much as kiss. It had been a damned _coincidence_that had brought all of their happiness crashing down. Their high-school had been closed for the day thanks to a big teacher conference and the twins had the run of the house to themselves all day – a rare opportunity for them. If their mother hadn't forgotten some stupid folder for a presentation she was giving at the office that day she would never have walked into the house at the exact wrong time and Dipper wouldn't be here right now.

He'd be with her. It was the only place he'd wanted to be for weeks now, the place he'd dreamed of night after night, on those nights when he wasn't suffering from ghostly memories of her hand slipping from his as he was pulled from her side and sent out to exile here in the wilderness. Cast out of his own house.

_This can't be a fun summer for Stan either_, Dipper thought only slightly bitterly,_I'm sure he's not really used to being a jailer instead of a prisoner._

The teen took a calming breath and glanced back up at the clock.

_7:40. They've kept us apart for 43 days now, officially._

_Well that ends today._

This wasn't even close to the teens first escape attempt, but tonight he thought he had a better chance than before. He'd laid low, kept quiet for the past two weeks to lull Stan into a false sense of security… make him think that Dipper was beaten and resigned. He had lain awake all night last week pretending that he had caught a cold and made careful observations about when Stan went to sleep, straining his ears and sneaking ever so carefully through to house to see if he could do it without waking his great uncle up. He must know Stan's schedule even better than he did by now, and tonight it was all going to pay off.

Dipper yawned deeply and set the alarm on his watch for 1 AM and lay down. It was early, but if he wanted to have enough energy to get as far from the shack as possible when he left he'd need to try and get some sleep first.

It hadn't worked.

Somehow, Stan had been anticipating his move tonight – when the teen had come sneaking down the attic stairs in his socks, his shoes were tied in a loop around his neck to soften his footsteps, he had been greeted by the sight of his great uncle waiting for him in the living room in his favorite recliner. Stan was casually flipping through an issue of one of his many old man magazines with clear disinterest and when he glanced up at Dipper over his glasses the boy felt his heart sink at the knowing look he saw there. Dipper sighed and hefted the over-stuffed backpack up on one shoulder and turned to head back to up the stairs when his uncles gruff voice cut through the air.

"Come down and have a seat," he said, his voice neither angry not happy.

Dipper stopped and grimaced, setting the backpack down on the steps before making his way down the steps to flop bonelessly on the couch, not turning to meet Stan's eyes.

"Going out somewhere tonight kid?" Stan asked mildly.

Dipper stayed silent, the feeling of disappointment in his chest lying heavy over his voice.

"Alright, looks like this is going to be a one-way conversation then," Stan said with a sigh. He took a swig of the can of cola perched on a nearby table and set the magazine down, turning his full attention to his nephew.

"Look, kid… I know that this whole situation hurts. I'd be an idiot if I couldn't see that just from the look on your face… but its really for the best."

"Why is it for the best?" Dipper asked sharply, his voice harsh.

"C'mon, be serious here – you know why." Stan replied, taken aback by the unusual venom in his nephews voice.

"No, let's just pretend that I'm an alien from another planet or something and that I really don't know." Dipper said.

"Okay, you want to play stupid? She's your sister – for most people that would be reason enough." Stan said, his own voice rising.

"Oh, I didn't know that we were planning on having a brood of mutant children – yeah, its totally reasonable to split us up then." Dipper said sarcastically.

"You know its more complicated than that." Stan said with a grunt.

"No, its actually really simple – this is taboo because family that gets 'too close' make freak babies, but we aren't idiots and don't do anything unsafe… so where's the real harm?" Dipper replied.

"Okay, lets say for a minute that you're right and that there's nothing really wrong or creepy about this, and thats a big IF there kid… there's also the fact that you're both seventeen." Stan said.

"And?"

"And no-one stays with their highschool sweetheart forever outside of those goofy movies that Mabel likes so much. You guys were going to split up eventually anyway, so this whole deal is just your folks speeding up the process." Stan replied.

"Okay, so if you really think that this is just a phase and we'll break up eventually then where's the harm in letting us get back together so it can run its course naturally?" Dipper shot back.

"Forget that last argument." Stan said, his eyes darting away awkwardly from his nephews hard gaze.

"No, I say we should keep it going – so lets suppose that Mabel and I are going to break up on our own… in that case you all win anyway… but lets say that we aren't going to break up and instead we'd be happy being together and _not_ having any mutant kids or anything – then all you are doing is making us miserable for no reason." Dipper said angrily.

"Had you considered the fact that even if you knuckleheads aren't going to be having 6 legged monster babies that people are all going to treat you like freaks everywhere you go if they find out? What kind of life is that for you? What kind of life is that for _her_?" Stan said.

"We… we'd already talked about that before," Dipper said quietly.

"You had?" Stan asked, feeling slightly surprised.

"Yeah. Look… we've been together… you know… _together_… for a pretty long time. This wasn't just us being 'curious' or 'experimenting' or whatever when we got caught. We've been seeing each other like this for almost a year and a half-" Dipper said.

"Sweet Moses! That long?" Stan said.

"Yeah… and we had… I don't know… plans and stuff for what we were going to do later. Aliases… fake ID's… moving to some town where no one knew our faces. We knew this wasn't going to be an easy life but we thought we could make it work." Dipper sighed, all his earlier anger drained. He felt tired. Tired, and sad and older than he had any right to feel.

"Look, kid… Dipper… I'm sorry." Stan said slowly.

"What?"

"I'm sorry that it had to go this way… You two… well, you two are just about the only people who I actually _enjoy _being around. I don't like that things had to happen this way, but I gotta believe that it's for the best though – for you and for her." Stan said quietly.

"Mabel cried when they split us up." Dipper said flatly.

Stan said nothing.

"She cried almost all night before they sent me here to you. Do you know what that was like? Being locked in my room and hearing the one person I care about most in the world crying her heart out and not being able to do anything about it." Dipper said slowly, his composure slipping at the end of the sentence. He gritted his teeth and gulped down the tremble he heard starting to come over his voice, only half succeeding.

Stan felt as though he'd just stabbed himself in the heart. He knew he was doing the right thing here, he _knew _he was… but seeing the boy like this, a kid who had practically been like a son to him… it hurt. Well, sometimes you have to hurt to heal… don't you?

The old man didn't raise his eyes to meet his grand-nephews. Of course Mabel would have cried… he knew that she would have been sad about this whole situation, but he hadn't been there for the fireworks. He hadn't seen it… it had been something only half known, like reading about a faraway accident in the newspaper. Hearing Dipper tell it though, he could practically hear his nieces shuddering full throated sobs echoing off the walls of the living room.

_Goddamnit_.

Stanford Pines had spent most of the many years of his life working as a manipulator, and he knew that Dipper was trying to play him… it was amateurish at best, and transparently obvious to a man as versed in the art of persuasion as Mr. Mystery himself… but he also knew that the boy was telling the truth too. Mabel would havecried all night… she might still be crying sometimes about what they had done even now that weeks had passed… what was he helping the kids parents do by keeping Mabel apart from Dipper?

Sometimes taking your medicine hurts… but this wasn't medicine was it? They weren't giving the kids a shot to prevent a disease or surgery to remove a tumor… their health wasn't the issue here, it was a question of their happiness versus… what? The family image? The kids reputations? The opinions of strangers? The law?

_I never gave a damn about most of that stuff. I've never lived a 'respectable' life and I don't see myself starting one now at my age._

_What if it was me? What if it was my old man trying to keep me from something I wanted? Telling me he knew what was best for my life by not letting me live it the way I wanted? What would I have done?_

"Running away from here won't help her." Stan said quietly, breaking the silence that had fallen over the room following Dipper's story.

"Come again?" Dipper said.

"What would you do if you managed to get out of here one night? Hitchhike back to California? Sneak into your folks house and break her out? Try to leave town on foot? You guys are smart but you're still just kids… the open road is no kind of place for a seventeen year girl to be wandering on without protection." Stan continued.

"She'd have me." Dipper said.

"You've toughened up over the years kid, I'll give you that, but you aren't exactly Superman. Sooner or later you two would run into something that you couldn't handle." Stan said firmly.

"Then what do you expect me to do, just give up?" Dipper said defiantly.

There was no sound in the room save for the slow squeak of the fan turning over their heads, barely pushing the humid summer night air around the room.

"No." Stan said, "I'd expect you to use your head. What's the point of having all those smarts if you're just going to blindly run away from home like any other dumb kid without a clue?"

"Grunkle Stan, what are you saying?" Dipper asked, confusion lacing his voice but also a faint glimmer of hope.

"I'm saying think it through- thoroughly. I know that I can't keep you locked here forever… sooner or later you'll find a way to get past me, even if I tried my damnedest to stop you. So don't half-ass this thing because the odds are that you'll only get one shot to make it work." Stan said with a sigh.

Dipper dug his fingers into the fabric of the couch, surprise and disbelief mingling with a current of excitement in his chest.

"Well… how would you do something like this?" Dipper asked hesitantly.

"Its not my place to help you with this. I'm the one whose supposed to be keeping you locked up here aren't I?" Stan said flatly.

There was silence once again in the living room, a cloud of tension lying over the Shack like a suffocating fog.

"Did I ever tell you that I almost got involved in a bank robbery once?" Stan said, apropos of nothing.

"I don't think I've heard that, no." Dipper said, confused.

"I didn't go through with it… didn't much like the idea of pointing guns at a bunch of innocent people, not to mention the whole risk of getting shot. It was probably a good decision since those guys all got caught anyway because they were sloppy." Stan continued.

Dipper wasn't really sure how to respond.

"Now if I had been in charge of something like that I would have made sure I had the most important things lined up from the start – the essentials. A good distraction so that you can avoid pursuit as long as possible, a getaway vehicle to put as many miles between you and the people chasing you as quickly as you can & a hideout to stay at till the heat dies down. Without that stuff you're just asking to have it all blow up in your face even if you get the money." Stan said, ticking off the points on his fingers.

A lightbulb suddenly clicked on in Dipper's head.

_Well a distraction is easy enough,_ Dipper mused, _I could probably manage something flashy but harmless with all the magical junk around here… an illusion maybe? This old town has plenty of places that would work well as hideouts too._

"You probably could have hid out somewhere around Gravity Falls… I mean, there's lots of secret caves and abandoned buildings and stuff." Dipper ventured, feeling hesitant to voice anything during his great-uncles odd aside.

"I probably could have, this whole towns packed with secrets. Hell – no one even knows about the tunnels and sub-basements and fallout shelters stocked with food that are right around the Mystery Shack." Stan said conversationally.

"I mean, with a little outside help you'd be able to do okay for yourself for a while if you were someplace like that." Dipper said.

"There you go – starting to use your brains already," Stan said, "I imagine you would have been a better partner for a bank robbery than those jokers."

"The getaway vehicle though? I don't imagine the golf cart has enough juice to make a long trip, much less allow for a quick escape." Dipper said.

"Keep thinking on this stuff kid – maybe sleep on it a little." Stan said with a loud, long and obviously fake yawn.

The old man pulled himself out from his old yellow chair, cracking his back with a groan and headed toward the stairs leading up to his bedroom. He paused at the foot of the stairs and headed back to the living room and over to the small rack of pegs by the front door wall and grabbed the set of keys hanging there.

"You know, I just get so used to leaving the keys to the old Diablo here out of habit… sometimes I forget that I've got you under house arrest. I ought to try and be more careful with them, who knows what might happen if I were to end up forgetting and left them here one of these nights?" Stan said absently as he slipped the keys into the pocket of his suit coat and headed back toward the stairs.

"Stan… are you sure about this?" Dipper asked.

"No, not really. Honestly kid this entire situation is all a whole new territory for me and I'm not gonna lie – it makes me as uncomfortable as hell to even think about it." Stan replied without turning to look back at the boy.

"Then why are you doing it?" Dipper asked.

"I don't like the idea of Mabel crying any more than you do, and I want no part in making it happen." Stan said shortly, clearing his throat roughly in the uncomfortable silence that followed before stomping his way up the stairs to his bedroom.

Dipper didn't have a response that would fit the situation, and the gratefulness he felt welling up out of his chest caught like a golf-ball sized lump of sand in his throat. There really wasn't anything he _could _say right now to Stan. Words felt empty compared to the enormity of the moment.

He had a chance now. He had the beginnings of a real plan, but most important of all he had an ally. A reluctant ally, true – but one that had never let him down in the past.

_Hang on just a little longer Mabel… I'll be coming soon._


	9. Chapter 9

_Art Practice_

"Stop fidgeting around so much," Mabel chided gently as she repositioned her large sketchpad slightly and selected a fresh stick of drawing charcoal from the little table at her side and returned to work.

Dipper sighed and tried to subtly get more comfortable in the bed. If he'd known just how strenuous posing for these drawings was going to be he never would have agreed to helping Mabel with her art homework in the first place.

_Well, that's not true, _he corrected himself, _I probably would have done it anyway. It is Mabel after all.  
><em>

_Maybe not if she'd told me I had to be naked the whole time, though._

Dipper shifted slightly, his current discomfort having less to do with the irritating way that the pillow had bunched up under his arm and more with the unusual situation of just being nude out in the open. Maybe it was stupid to feel that way since they were all alone and the two of them had been semi-regularly naked in each others company since their senior year of high-school, but that usually happened in places with dim lights and they were mostly too distracted by the things they were doing to each other for Dipper to feel so exposed.

Thanks to Mabel's new college life drawing class though he was definitely feeling that way now, and Dipper had spent most of the afternoon acting like a mannequin as Mabel had him stand in various ways or asked him to flex different muscles while she scribbled furiously in her huge sketchpad with her goofy hand-knitted beret perched jauntily on her head. His current pose was at least semi-comfortable since it was just him reclining on the bed here in her dorm with a cup held loosely in one hand and a makeshift crown of leaves and branches on his head, like a somewhat scraggly looking Greek god.

"Can you try looking a bit more regal? Like you just saw a guy giving humans fire and you're pretty pissed about it," Mabel instructed as she peeked out from around the corner of her easel.

"Prometheus," Dipper said, snapped out of his bored reverie by that little tidbit of old trivia popping up in his brain.

"Prowhozius?" Mabel asked.

"The guy from the myth who gave people fire, he was Prometheus." Dipper explained.

"Was he the one who had to push that rock up a hill forever as a punishment?" Mabel said, tapping her chin thoughtfully with her charcoal stick and leaving a smudge there like a tiny dusty beard.

"No, he was the guy who had his liver ripped out by eagles forever," Dipper said with a slight grimace as he recalled that particular gory detail.

"Yeesh. I think the rock guy got off easy." Mabel said with a wince.

"Yeah that was my impression too," Dipper said.

Mabel turned back to her drawing pad and gave it a long critical stare, reached out with her charcoal stick and gave it a tiny flick over the paper and then nodded once to herself.

"Alright, we're done for the day." she announced with satisfaction.

All at once Dipper felt himself relax and gave a contented breath, reaching up to rub one of the stiffer muscles in his neck. How many hours had they been at this already?

"Could I take a look? I'm kind of curious how they turned out," he asked. In his mind he was actually insanely interested but he tried to hide it under a layer of forced casualness.

"Um… sure thing. I'm not positive if you're going to like them though," Mabel said in a somewhat shy tone of voice.

She flipped around the easel and Dippers eyes were greeted with an enormous hand. It was an extremely well drawn hand, holding a cup exactly like the one that Dipper had been holding earlier and it was almost disturbingly accurate in its details. All the familiar hairs and veins and the shape of the knuckles were just like his own hands… but there was still the matter that the rest of him was nowhere to be seen on the page.

"Mabel, what's with this?" Dipper asked.

"Weeeellll," Mabel began, "my assignment was to draw 10 hands and 10 feet, so that's what I've been doing this whole time."

Dipper stared at her in disbelief.

"I think they came out pretty good though," she added hopefully.

"Yeah, they're great actually," Dipper said as he flipped through the pages, impressed despite his annoyance. "Why did you have me naked this whole time though?"

"What? I just wanted to have some nice scenery while I worked," Mabel said with a slightly teasing grin.

"Ugh, remind me to never help you with any assignment ever again," Dipper said grouchily as he started looking around the room for his clothes and feeling his ears start to burn slightly.

"Hey, what's wrong with me wanting to check out my boyfriend naked? Are you saying that you'd turn down seeing _me_ naked if you got the chance?" Mabel asked playfully.

Dipper picked up his shirt off the floor and held it loosely in his hands.

"I guess I wouldn't…" he said, unsure as to whether to put it on or not. He thought he recognized a certain familiar warm tone coming into Mabel's voice and now storming out in annoyance was seeming like a less interesting option.

Mabel stepped in close to him and wrapped her arms loosely around his torso, resting her chin comfortably on his shoulders. He could feel her breath hot in his ear and it tickled in an extremely pleasant way.

"Do you really need to get dressed right away? I mean, we've got the rest of the afternoon to ourselves." she purred before her lips wandered over from his ear and pressed themselves softly against his own mouth.

It felt a bit strange to be standing naked and making out with someone who was still fully clothed, but that situation didn't last long as two eager sets of hands started helping Mabel slip out of her outfit before they pulled each other over to the bed in a giggling heap. Dipper felt something poke at his ear and he realized that he still had the little wreath of twigs and leaves set slightly off center on the top of his head, but when he reached up to remove it he felt Mabel's small strong hand clamp tight over his wrist.

"Nuh uh," she said with a mischievous shake of her head, "I want it with the crown on."


	10. Chapter 10

_Tipsy_

Loud music rattled the windows of the second floor of the apartment building, the beat heavy enough to almost drown out the sound of the footsteps of the lone figure walking down the creaky wooden staircase until he had reached the first floor. He continued his walk out toward the small grassy courtyard in the center of the 'C' shaped building and plopped himself down on the bench seat of a rickety old picnic table which the previous apartment manager had set up over a decade ago and then promptly forgotten to take care of or replace over the years. It was almost 2 AM now, but even in the dim light of the stars Dipper could make out some of the graffiti carved into the wooden surface of the table, absentmindedly tracing over a few of the more obscene words with his fingertip while he took a moody sip of the drink in his red plastic cup. He still wasn't quite sure what this stuff was but it tasted strong enough, burning his nose on the way down with each sip. He didn't mind the burn though, being in a mood to get good and drunk tonight.

It had been a couple of years now since Dipper had left home for college, and almost a full year since he and Mabel had ditched their former life of secretive make-out sessions in campus dorms and close calls sneaking around their old roommates in favor of moving into their own crummy little apartment together. The old red-brick building was practically falling to pieces but the rent was cheap enough for the two of them to afford with the money pooled between their part time jobs and financial aid, which was a major point in its favor. More than the low cost though, Dipper loved the freedom that came from having a home of their own – somewhere that belonged to just him and Mabel.

Well, technically it actually belonged to the landlord but he wasn't ever really around, particularly when they needed something fixed.

Even with that little annoyance though, Dipper loved having a place where they didn't have to look over their shoulders just in case someone was around to spot them being _too_ affectionate with each other or worry about people thinking that they were _suspiciously_ close. The fact that Dipper got to wake up every morning with Mabel spooned in his arms, snoring loudly and with her limbs splayed out in the most ridiculous poses, more than made up for the fact that he'd had to memorize which of the rickety apartment stair-steps were safe to walk on and had to wait 20 minutes for the rusty old water heater to get his early morning shower to a decent temperature. He would have put up with twice the discomfort if it meant that the two of them had a private place of their own where they could just be together, stress and guilt free.

At the moment though that place wasn't feeling particularly private because Mabel had apparently invited pretty much the entire campus to it for a big end-of-the-semester party, and the apartment had been jammed up tighter than a sardine can when Dipper had decided to go out for a breather. Even down here in the courtyard he could hear the chatter of voices floating down from the Pines twins' rooms on the second floor. Dipper didn't doubt that the cops would have been called in a long time ago to clear everyone out if it weren't for the fact that all of their neighbors in the building either were other students who had already gone home for the summer break or were currently at the party and contributing to the noise themselves.

Dipper took another sip from his cup and winced slightly at the weird sweet-tart flavor of the drink as well as from the incredibly strong burn of the alcohol in it. His eyes drifted up toward the sky and he spent a few minutes absentmindedly picking out the various constellations that he recognized from his astronomy class last semester as he continued working his way through the drink. When he caught sight of the familiar shape of the Big Dipper overhead he raised his glass to it in salute.

"Dipper might not have been the best nickname in the world," he began, his words slurring very slightly, "but if it weren't for you I might have ended up getting called 'Spotface' instead, so thanks for being there for me big guy."

He gave a slightly embarrassed cough after he completed his spontaneous toast to the constellation and took another long drink. Dipper gave a relaxed sigh as he felt the warmth of the alcohol rise to his skin and set the nearly empty cup down on the picnic table. He felt his eyelids start to grow heavy and leaned back against the tables' battered surface, enjoying the cool night breeze blowing across his flushed face and ruffling his messy mop of brown hair.

Dipper had started to drift off into the beginnings of a relaxing drunk-nap when his ears caught the sound of footsteps rustling through the grass of the courtyard. He turned bleary eyes in the direction of the noise and saw the familiar shape of Mabel heading his way, a pair of red plastic cups in her hands identical to his own empty one and a battered old Burger Prince crown tilted slightly askew on her long chestnut colored curls. Dipper could see what looked like handfuls of glitter and confetti scattered across her bright teal party dress and over her bare arms like extremely festive chickenpox. Though her steps across the courtyard were sure and steady Dipper noticed that Mabel's cheeks had that bright rosy flush that always came over them whenever she'd had just a bit too much to drink.

"Hey there sleeping cutie, whatcha doing out here in the dark – you do know that the parties upstairs, right?" Mabel asked playfully, her voice just a touch more bubbly than usual. Mabel had a tolerance for drink just slightly below her tolerance for candy, but apparently even she'd had enough to affect her tonight.

"I'd found a few clues to that effect yeah," Dipper said, his words slow and overly deliberate. He always tried to speak in an even and measured tone when he was drinking. Just another way to seem more mature and in control than he usually felt.

"Bravo Inspector Pines," Mabel teased in a slurred British accent, "you've cracked another case."

"As for why I'm here," Dipper continued, ignoring the gentle barb, "I guess I just felt like a little fresh air since it was getting kind of crowded upstairs."

"I'd been looking all over for you up there – I had the karaoke machine all fired up and ready to go, but was one half of an epic musical duo short," Mabel said with a pout.

"I think the world will manage to survive missing a performance from Love Patrol Alpha – considering my singing voice I may have been doing our guests a favor when I skipped out," Dipper said with a roll of his eyes, but with a smile starting to tug on the corner of his mouth.

"No, no no no no - Love Patrol Alpha is our musical _trio_ when we're singing with Grunkle Stan," Mabel explained with all the exaggerated seriousness of the drunk. "When it's just the two of us singing together we're Multiple Eargasm."

"Ugh, terrible. Why do I never get a say in the fake-band names?" Dipper said with a grimace.

"You would have if you ever came to the fake-band rehearsals," Mabel replied.

She nudged Dippers shoulder playfully so that he could scooch aside and let her take her seat beside him on the bench, and then set the cups she was carrying down in front of them. Dipper saw that both were full near to the brim with more of that weird multicolored drink that he'd served himself earlier and his curiosity got the better of him.

"What exactly is this stuff anyway?" Dipper asked as he picked up one of the cups and eyed it critically before giving a small shrug and then taking a long drink. He shivered at the combination of teeth-aching sweetness and ridiculously strong alcoholic flavor.

"Mabel Juice 2.0," Mabel said proudly as she took a long sip from her own cup, "it's basically Kool-Aid, but with vodka and Sprite instead of water and Smile Dip instead of the flavor powder."

"Smile Dip? Isn't that stuff crazy illegal here in America?" Dipper asked with a cocked eyebrow.

"I know a guy with some connections," Mabel whispered confidentially. "What do you think of my masterpiece here?"

Dipper took another slow sip and then smacked his lips, swirling the red plastic cup around in his hands like a guy at a low class wine tasting.

"Bold, very sweet… and do I detect a hint of plastic dinosaur?" Dipper asked, cocking his head curiously.

"Only as a garnish," Mabel replied, reaching into her own cup and pulling out a little plastic cocktail sword that had a toy tyrannosaurus speared on it like a martini olive.

"Let me guess, you put that there to give the drink some extra bite?" Dipper asked, well aware of Mabel's love of cheesy jokes.

"You know me so well," Mabel said with a happy sigh, leaning her head against Dipper's shoulder and snuggling in closer to him on the picnic table bench.


	11. Chapter 11

_Chicken Soup_

Mabel knows that she's already way too old to expect her parents to stay home and baby her just because she's sick today.

At seventeen years old she's practically an adult after all, as she has to remind them whenever they try to treat her like she's still a kid. That's a rare event nowadays though, because in the past few years Mabel has actually done a pretty impressive amount of growing up - she earns her own money at her part time job, keeps up a sorta-steady B average in school & even has her own car too (okay, technically the car is both hers and Dipper's since they had pooled their money together to buy it, but it still definitely counts as a real Adult Thing in her mind).

Heck, her parents had even completely axed her old curfew this year because they trusted her enough to not get dangerously drunk or pregnant or end up in jail or whatever. For all her crazy and carefree reputation among her classmates Mabel knows that she is actually pretty responsible and independent and junk and most of the time she feels proud of herself for how much faith her folks have in her ability to take care of herself.

None of those facts keeps Mabel from feeling slightly betrayed when she hears her mom's tires crunching in the gravel of the driveway as she heads off to work, leaving her beloved only daughter lying abandoned in bed with a horrible wasting illness eating away at her. She can practically feel the shadow of Death looming over her bed.

Well, _okay_ – so it's really only a regular cold and not the plague or anything, but Mabel still feels like a miserable pile of aches and stuffiness. That should count for something, right?

Plus being left all alone at home is so _boring_, and that's almost worse than the sickness itself.

Mabel gives an irritated sniffle at the faint sound of her mother's car passing around the corner of the street and exiting the neighborhood, leaving the house totally silent except for the faint squeak of the ceiling fan turning lazily overhead and the gross rattle of her own phlegmy breathing. It was going to be a long and ugly day by the feel of things – the kind of day it would probably be better just to sleep through, and Mabel resolved to do just that. She smacked her lips a few times to try and get rid of the nasty after-taste of the extra strength medicine that she'd forced herself to choke down earlier that morning and shuts her eyes tight, hoping that it would be tomorrow by the time she opened them again.

It was a short time later and Mabel had succeeded in half-drifting back to sleep when she suddenly recognized the distinctive crunch of tires in the driveway gravel once again. She blearily shuffled herself up into a sitting position, curious about the source of the unexpected sound.

Maybe her mom had decided to take the day off from work after all?

Mabel tried not to let her sudden sense of childish relief show on her face when she heard the front door of the house open up and caught the sound of footsteps heading into the home. She considered calling out a greeting, but her throat was so sore from coughing all through last night that she decided against it. Mabel lay back down in her bed, feeling a calmness drift over her… it's not like she was scared to be alone or anything silly like that, it just felt nice knowing there was someone else in the house right now.

She could hear a clatter of noise drifting up the stairs from around the kitchen area and winced to herself at the loud CLANG of a pan falling off the rack followed by a startled voice. She couldn't hear the voice too clearly all the way here in her bedroom, but she could tell right away that it wasn't a very feminine voice.

_Okay, so it's __**not**__ Mom then. Who is it? Is it a burglar? What kind of a burglar breaks into a house to cook something?_

Mabel's fever-blurred mind kicks into panicky overdrive at the thought that she's currently trapped sick and helpless in a house with a potentially insane (and apparently hungry) home invader. She jerks up unsteadily in the bed and staggers to her feet, trying to step as quietly as possible to not alert the maniac downstairs that there's another person in the house as she makes her way to her closet. It only takes a few minutes of digging through her accumulated closet junk before she manages to find her old softball bat with its slightly dented aluminum body and hot-pink duct tape grip. The bats weight feels reassuringly solid as she lifts it up in her hands.

Mabel hefts the length of the bat onto her shoulder, shuddering slightly at the feel of the cold metal on her fever-heated skin. Her hands are shaking but she tightens her grip on the bat and sets her mouth in a grim line, trying to think fearsome thoughts to psych herself up.

_Alright burglar, prepare to meet your worst nightmare!_

After a few tense minutes of waiting she hears the soft tread of footsteps moving up the carpeted stairs drawing closer to her doorway and gets herself ready to pounce, her hands choked up high and tight on the bat. Her heart practically explodes when she suddenly hears a tentative knock on her door.

"Hey Mabel – you feeling okay in there?" Dipper asks softly following the knock.

Mabel gives a sigh of surprised relief and then her eyes swivel to the bat in her hands before she guiltily drops it to the ground with a hollow metallic clatter.

"Y-yeah… just kinda feverish in the brain I guess," she calls back quietly.

_I was gonna slug Dipper with a baseball bat? What in the heck was I thinking! _

_They should put "extreme paranoia" on the list of cold medicine side effect._

"I'm heating you up some chicken soup – mind if I come in?" Dipper asks, his voice still in that sickroom-quiet tone.

"Uh, sure, just gimme a sec," Mabel says hastily as she frantically nudges the bat under her bed with her brightly-socked foot. She settles herself back down into the bed, pulling the covers up to her chin and trying to forget the whole embarrassing incident.

Dipper pushed the door open slowly and peeked in around the corner at Mabel, giving her a small smile and a gentle wave of greeting.

"Aren't you supposed to be at school right about now mister?" Mabel asked, feeling a matching smile tug at the corners of her own mouth.

"Technically yeah, though as far as the front office knows we both have the same cold so I'm going to be out for the day too," Dipper said, pushing open the door further and stepping into the room fully.

"Lying to school officials Dipper? I'm shocked. Shocked! Maybe just a little proud too," Mabel said in a teasing tone of voice, right before a sudden burst of coughing wracked through her and left her throat feeling raw. She hunched forward on the bed hugging her knees and tried to breathe slowly and painlessly as possible.

As soon as the coughing fit stopped Mabel felt Dippers broad hand moving soothingly over her back and her pain-blurred eyes saw him bending low over her with a look of concern on his face.

Dipper leaned back once the fit had finally passed and rested up against the wall, trying and failing to seem calm and casual in the face of his earlier show of concern.

"Well you know, I was heading to school today and it just didn't feel right without you there fighting with me to see who got to drive or which radio station we were going to listen to and it was just throwing my whole rhythm off. I figured I could do more good here at home trying to get you better soon as possible," Dipper said, one hand idly scratching the back of the other in a nervous gesture.

Mabel smiled up at him and felt a warmth swell in her chest which had nothing to do with her fever. At least she hoped it didn't anyway.

"Thank bro-bro… that's really sweet of you," Mabel said softly, reaching out her hand to give his a friendly squeeze. She doesn't let go though, and the squeeze passes just a tiny bit past acceptably friendly.

She could see a faint flush come over Dippers face and he squeezed her hand back gently, his touch as soft as if he were handling an eggshell. They both stayed silent for a brief pause, not quite looking at each other but also not _not _looking at each other… it was one of those situations which they knew all too well but which they never spoke of. Awkwardly tender moments that always seemed to be on the cusp of something more. Something big and strange and a little frightening.

Dippers eyes traveled down from their nervous inspection of Mabel's ceiling (decorated with a galaxies worth of glow in the dark plastic stars) and back over to her face. Even through the sheen of fever sweat and the redness of her nose and cheeks he thinks she looks beautiful and he feels those dangerous words try to squirm their way out of his brain and into his mouth before he quickly stifles them. He reluctantly starts to loosen his grip on her hand, but hers is still clamped on his own fingers as tight as a vise, and there's a look in her slightly feverish eyes that leaves him fixed in place.

The shrill shriek of a fire alarm startles them out of their brief pause and Dipper's eyes shoot guiltily to the door.

"Damn! Give me a second Mabel, I gotta get back to the kitchen!" Dipper says, gently pulling himself free of Mabel's grip and darting out of the room and down the stairs.

Mabel's eyes stay fixed on the now empty doorway for a moment before she snuggles herself back into the bed. She runs her fingertips over the palm of her hand, feeling the faint traces of his warmth fade away. She knows that she _should _feel guilty about moments like this, but she doesn't. Not anymore, anyway – it's been going on in her head far too long to still beat herself up about it.

She _knows_ he feels it too - she can see it in his face. Dipper could never keep secrets from her no matter how hard he tried, but whether he'll ever admit it to her is another matter entirely.

Maybe he will and maybe he won't. Maybe it's all just a phase for the both of them… but phase or not Mabel doesn't really mind. In this moment, sick as she is, she feels almost content listening to the sounds of Dipper scrambling around the kitchen and working his dorky little heart out to make her chicken soup. It might not be the same as finally letting whatever this_ thing_ that was going on between them out in the open…

…_but it might be a good place to start, _Mabel thought with a small smile.


End file.
